I wasn’t expecting Rachel to be up before me. I had an early css, and I’d wanted to have a shower, so I set my arm really early. I selected my outfit for the day, another skirt and t-shirt combo, grabbed a towel, then left my room to head to the bathroom.

  Which was locked.

  Rachel was inside.

  No problem, I’ll just wait for her.

  Wait, no, slight problem, I’m completely naked. I dropped my clothes and hastily wrapped the towel around myself just in time for Rachel to leave the bathroom.

  I looked up from gathering my clothes off the floor, and what I saw was so unexpected I froze for a good second.

  Rachel was wearing a dress. An honest to goddess dress. It was solid purple and hugged her new curves wonderfully. It took my brain a moment to take in this sight, and then another moment for me to stand back up, clothes gathered in my arms. Naturally, my towel was not cooperating, and I had to hold it in pce to avoid fshing my friend.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Morning,” Rachel replied, a blush on her face. “Uh, bathroom’s free now.”

  We awkwardly maneuvered around each other, and I closed the bathroom door behind me once I was inside.

  While I ate breakfast, I kept gncing at Rachel. Goddess, she was wearing a dress. An actual fucking dress.

  “So, uh,” I started, “what’s with the outfit?”

  Rachel looked up from her breakfast, startled. “Uhhh, what do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re wearing a really cute dress,” I said, to which Rachel went beet red. “I was just wondering if you had some special reason for it, or if you just felt like it.”

  Rachel was silent for a few moments, staring at her toast with a prominent frown on her face. “No special… whatever. I just put it on. It’s just clothes. No big deal.”

  It kind of felt like a big deal considering the whole denial thing she had going on, but I wasn’t sure how to say that to her without making her more upset somehow.

  It hit me that I really had no clue how to help her. As obvious as it was how much she wanted to be and was enjoying being a girl, she refused to just accept it. When asked, she’d insist that she had to go back to being a guy somehow. Not exactly a productive outcome. And I didn’t have time to figure something out, because I had a css to get to.

  I sit next to Liv in our morning lecture, reaching over to take her hand.

  “Good morning,” she says happily.

  “Morning,” I reply. From behind me, I hear Hazel’s voice calling out, “hey you two. Got your presentation ready for Monday yet?”

  Liv’s eyes go wide.

  “Oh fuck,” I say.

  Liv groaned. “Well, there goes my Saturday. And there’s the party at Sophie’s… I am not skipping that.”

  “Do you have time this afternoon? We could work on it between csses.”

  Liv nodded. “Yeah, we could do that. Did we have a topic picked out?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t remember.”

  “Neither do I,” Liv said. “Fuck.”

  On that note, the lecture began. Liv and I turned to focus on it, Hazel giggling in the background.

  Afterwards, Liv and I parted ways, Liv and Hazel heading off to another lecture together, while I went to a tutorial for a geography course I was in.

  Once again I joined Liv and the others for lunch since Rachel wasn’t around. This time, Quinn, Sophie, and Iris were all present, but, strangely, Hazel was missing. Some strange blonde girl I’d never met before had joined the table. Everyone acted like they already knew her, and I was wondering who she was. She was tall and buff, with warm brown eyes and a pyful grin.

  Liv noticed me staring at this new girl. “Oh, uh, Lilly, this is Cire.”

  “Um, hi,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said to me, smirking. “I’m Hazel’s, ah, sister.”

  “Hazel has a sister?” I asked.

  “She has a lot of sisters,” Cire replied. “There’s me, Breanne, Ophelia, Naomi, Mara, Harper, a bunch of others.”

  I blinked. “Uh, that seems like a lot. How on earth did your parents manage that?”

  “Oh we’re not sisters like that,” Cire said.

  “They’re headmates,” Cra said. “Cire’s just teasing you.”

  “Headmates,” I said. “I have no idea what that means.”

  “Oh, well, it’s not that complicated,” Cire said, grinning wolfishly, “we just live in the same head, that’s all. Share a body. All that jazz. No big deal.”

  Oh. Ok then.

  “That’s a real thing?” I asked. “Like, I thought it was just made up for like movies and shit.”

  “A lot of what appears in movies is made up for them,” Cire grumbled. “But, yes, it’s real. I’m real. Just as real as Hazel. We’re plural. Or a system. There’s a bunch of different terms for it, and it mostly just boils down to us being a bunch of people sharing one body. Oh, and as for how our parents managed it? Well, by traumatising us of course!”

  Excuse me ma’am, what the actual fuck.

  “What Cire means is that childhood trauma can be a part of how a system forms,” Iris said.

  “Exactly,” Cire said. “That’s where Mara and Breanne come from. No idea where Harper came from though. They’re mysterious that way.”

  “Ok…” I said. “Uh, can I, um, meet some of the others?”

  “Not right now,” Cire said. “Little side effect of touching that statue is now our body shifts to match whoever is fronting. That is, whoever is currently ‘in charge’ of our body. Uh, but tomorrow at Sophie’s, you can definitely meet some of the others. Harper and Breanne for sure. Not Mara, though. Definitely not Ophelia. They’re both a bit shy.”

  “Ooo…. kay then,” I said. “Wait, how many people are in there then?” I asked.

  “A couple dozen,” Cire said. “Anyway, my name is Cire Rachel Summer, she/ze/they. Nice to meet you.” She stuck out their hand for me to shake.

  I accepted. “Uh, what’s the middle pronoun there? I think I kinda recognise it.”

  “Oh, um, ze/zir,” Cire said. Ze grinned. “It’s a neopronoun. Hazel does use them too, because, yeah, any. Harper also uses any, by the way, but you need to swap which pronoun you use every time you use one for them. She’s quirky that way.”

  Something about those pronouns caught my attention. I remembered that Quinn used three different pronouns too. “Is it common to use pronouns like that?” I asked.

  Cire shrugged. “If not, it’s probably more because people don’t realise how fucking cool they are!”

  Liv giggled. “I agree, they are cool, I just don’t think any of them suit me.”

  I picked up my now cold sandwich, realising that I’d been so engrossed in the discussion I had yet to take a single bite.

  Would any of those pronouns fit me, maybe?

  Liv and I left to go work on our presentation after lunch.

  Step one: figure out what we were going to present!

  Cire followed us for some reason too.

  “How about the merits of basementing Mark,” she muttered.

  I gave her a confused look. Liv sighed.

  “What?” Cire said. “Look, she’s gonna learn about it eventually, hanging around with us. Either you expin it or I will. She’s properly hatched now anyway. She’s totally ready for it.”

  “Later, please,” Liv said. “We’ve got a presentation to work on.”

  “Oh alright,” Cire said, standing up. “I’m gonna go buy some weed. Well, Hazel will, since it’s her picture on our ID. You want some eddies?”

  “I’m good,” Liv said. “Seeya, Cire.”

  “Seeya,” Cire said, walking off, hands in her pockets.

  “What on earth was she talking about?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Liv said. “Just a book. A really good book, but we have a project to do. I’ll send you a link to it ter.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Uh, presentation topic. Got any ideas. ‘Cause I’m totally bnking.”

  “I’ve got plenty of ideas, yeah,” Liv said.

  After a bit of back and forth, Liv and I finally came up with a topic — an overview of lesbian fashion. Liv, being the more butch of the two of us (which still wasn’t very butch to be honest), would research, of course, femme fashion, while I, the more femme (but also not that femme either) would research butch fashion. There was no way this could possibly backfire in any amusing ways whatsoever!

  Of course, us being us, we repeatedly got distracted by kissing or other couple-y activities, so it took us long enough to come up with that much that Liv had to go to her next css.

  “You want me to wait for you?”

  Liv shrugged. “You don’t have to. I’ll be staying on campus te tonight, it’ll probably be better for you to just go home this afternoon.”

  “I have a calculus lecture,” I said. “But, yeah, you’re right. Oh, by the way, can you help Rachel and I with getting her a desk tomorrow?”

  Liv smiled brightly at that. “Sure! I can do that.”

  As I was leaving my calculus lecture that afternoon, my phone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket, expecting to see a text from Rachel, but instead there was one from my mom.

  Jessica: Hey, Lilly. Do you think you could come visit on Sunday? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.

  I texted back a response letting her know I’d be there, before putting my phone away and heading home.

  gayannabeth